Key facts

• Tourism Australia’s ‘Come Walkabout’ television advertisement, conceived by Baz Luhrmann, has received a silver Clio Award.
• The ‘Come Walkabout’ New York ad was awarded best cinematography for the work of cinematographer Mandy Walker, who also shot Luhrmann's movie Australia.

Key quotes

• "I'm so proud of Mandy Walker and her work on the Tourism Australia campaign, as well as Australia, and it's so great seeing her work, together with that of the entire production team, being recognised in this way." Baz Luhrmann.
• "We know that the advertising campaign has been resonating with our target consumers around the world but it is gratifying that the creative industry too is giving recognition to the campaign." Geoff Buckley, Managing Director, Tourism Australia.

Full story

Tourism Australia’s ‘Come Walkabout’ television advertisement, conceived by Baz Luhrmann, has received a silver Clio Award, one of the world’s most prestigious international advertising and design competitions honouring creative excellence and innovation in the industry.

The awards, presented in Las Vegas overnight, saw the ‘Come Walkabout’ New York advertisement awarded best cinematography for the work of cinematographer Mandy Walker, who also shot Luhrmann's movie Australia..

Luhrmann said, "I'm so proud of Mandy Walker and her work on the Tourism Australia campaign, as well as Australia, and it's so great seeing her work, together with that of the entire production team, being recognised in this way."

Commenting on the win, Tourism Australia Managing Director, Geoff Buckley said it was a great honour for the advertisement to receive such recognition for creative excellence.

“We know that the advertising campaign has been resonating with our target consumers around the world but it is gratifying that the creative industry too is giving recognition to the campaign,” Mr Buckley said. “I congratulate Mandy, the director Bruce Hunt, Baz, Catherine Martin, and everyone at Revolver and Bazmark for this award.”

Mr Buckley said the TV, print and online campaign had already broken records for Tourism Australia.

“We have 130 co-operative partners for the Come Walkabout and movie campaign, more than for any campaign we’ve produced in the past,” he said. “And it’s working for them. Emirates airlines, for example, has described its joint campaign with us as a ‘huge success’ and that it played a significant role in their double digit increase in business to Australia in January.”

“Nearly 100 million of our global target audience of Experience Seekers have seen the advertising campaign and what’s more we know it is influencing how they think about Australia as a holiday destination. Our research shows that Experience Seekers who have seen the advertising are 22 per cent more likely to visit Australia than if they had not seen it.”

Mr Buckley said the campaign was clearly helping Australia to out-perform many of its competitors in a very tough global marketplace.

“Whilst arrivals numbers are down they are considerably better than many comparable destinations. This is a testament to the consistently strong demand for Australia, which our marketing helps drive, and the efforts of our industry partners to provide the best possible offers to close the sale.”

The Clio award win follows Tourism Australia’s recent win in the Webby Awards, which saw the Australia.com website win the ‘People’s Voice’ award in the tourism category.

The creative team for the ‘Come Walkabout’ ad included:

Advertising Agency: Bazmark Inq, Sydney
Editing Company: Guillotine, Sydney
Sound Design Company: Song Zu, Sydney
Visual Effects Company: Animal Logic
Creative Director: Baz Luhrmann
Director: Bruce Hunt
Editor: Drew Thompson
Composer: Elliot Wheeler
Sound Designer: Simon Kane
Production Company: Bazmark Inq, Revolver, Sydney
Music Company: Nylon Studios, Sydney
Agency Producer: Baz Luhrmann
Executive Producer: Anton Monsted
Producer: Michael Ritchie
Cinematographer: Mandy Walker
Other: Karen Murphy (Production Designer), Eliza Godman (Costume Designer)

About the CLIO Awards
The CLIO Awards is one of the world’s most recognised awards competition for advertising, design and interactive. Celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2009, the CLIO Awards has maintained its original commitment to celebrate and reward creative excellence, honouring a powerful form of communication and its impact on modern culture. At the same time, the CLIO Awards remains focused on evolving with the industry in order to acknowledge the most current, breakthrough work. To this day, CLIO’s iconic statue is the most widely recognized and coveted symbol of the industry’s creative accomplishments. The CLIO Awards are produced by Nielsen Business Media, a part of The Nielsen Company, a global information and media company.